Some advice for the censors: lighten up, fellas

Michael Chugani

BIO

Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong-born American citizen who has worked for many years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the USA and London. Aside from being a South China Morning Post columnist he also hosts TVB’s Straight Talk show, a radio show and writes for two Chinese-language publications. He has published a number of books on politics which contain English and Chinese versions.

Have the internet censors up north lost their marbles? Someone e-mailed a picture of Kashmir's scenic Dal Lake to family members, including one who was in Beijing at the time. He tried to view the picture, but this popped up instead: "The image has been removed for security reasons." It's a picture of a scenic lake, for heaven's sake, not a picture of the country's new aircraft carrier or "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung hurling bananas at a state leader. How can a simple picture of Dal Lake be a threat to security? Either the security czars have klutzes for censors or the czars themselves are klutzes. This is a country that's supposedly opening up with free trade zones and stock exchange linkages. Why get so jumpy over a picture of a lake? Here's Public Eye's advice to the censors: lighten up, fellas.

You can't call a liquid diet a hunger strike, pan-dems

A hunger strike? Really? Looked to us more like a nutritious liquid diet. Gandhi would have been amused. Bobby Sands probably turned in his grave laughing. If what the pan-democrats did for 16 days outside HSBC is called a hunger strike, we recommend it to all obese people. The fast to push for democracy began with 17 pan-democrats taking part. But it was more a feast of sports drinks than a fast. Even then, most of the fasters gave up within a few days, claiming fatigue and fainting. Only three remained when the so-called hunger strike was called off 16 days later. No wonder they drew smirks from the media and ridicule from radical democrats. Let's face it: our fearless fighters for democracy are more attuned to fine wine in the august dining room of the Legislative Council than fasting Gandhi-style.

Sadistic animal killers in desperate need of help

Has the dog poisoner morphed into a cat killer? Or has he (or she) inspired copycats? Last Sunday's mass killing of six cats was not the first time innocent and defenceless animals have suffered such a cruel fate. We've had cats kicked around like a football, strung up and tortured, and hundreds of dogs poisoned. Are we becoming a city of sadists? Public Eye is no big fan of dogs. We don't particularly enjoy stepping in dog poop or being kept awake by incessant barking. Whenever we vent fury about this, dog lovers come down on us like a tonne of bricks as if we're the instigator, not the victim. But much as we dislike barking dogs, we're disgusted by whackos who poison dogs and torture cats. To all you whackos out there: get help.

Repulsive greed of a preschool's landlord

It's business but there's still something unsavoury about a landlord so drunk with greed that he kicks out a kindergarten whose offer to double the rent still wasn't good enough. That happened in Tin Shui Wai last week. What should parents tell their children whose young lives were suddenly disrupted? That this is Hong Kong, where half a million dollars a month still won't do for a kindergarten? Where kindergartens price out each other in the chase for dollars? Where landlords don't give a fig (we'd like to use a stronger word but aren't allowed to) about kids being displaced? We find such greed as repulsive as cat killers.

It really puzzles me that the landlord of the kindergarten was no others than a company which is a subsidiary of LKS’s conglomerate. LKS just a year ago donated a billion to build a university in his hometown in mainland, but he would let a non-profit kindergarten to go out of business by raising its rent paying to him. Whatever kind of business principle he is operating, he in the eyes of others he is being ruthless and uncaring to the people in Hong Kong.

swami.vas Apr 18th 20149:17am

Fasting – Gandhi style in Hong Kong? No offence meant to India's Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, reportedly whenever he went on hunger strike which perhaps was more often than his regular meals, there were strict instructions from the British raj to jail authorities to ensure that there was a steady supply of fasting diet meals for him served at an opportune time! One wonders if the Hong Kong Chief Executive gave any such instructions like the British raj to the concerned authorities here!

Baggy Apr 16th 20141:26pm

those pan democrats who quit their hunger strike, did it because, they had too much of the liquid diet and were gaining weight!!

John,Are you sure this is a non-profit making kindergarten? I recall having read somewhere that it was a profit-making institution. That said, its still in the education business and if it is subject to market forces its real pitiful indeed.